Michael Igwe (b.1994, Lagos, Nigeria) is an artist working with painting and installation. As an artist whose childhood is largely populated by folklore handed down orally, through Iko Nke Annang, a poetic art form of the Annang tribe in Akwa Ibom, Southern Nigeria, Igwe's interest lies in the dedicated discipline of such narration and in the potential within painting to shape the nuances of all those narratives that involve him. Therefore, his work comes before our eyes as a clear reminder of the eternal image, herein kept continually alive.

Igwe pursues primal gestures that contemplate and engender in each image the conditions that constitute selfhood, yet approaching painting as embodiment of presence extending beyond one's own. His re-animated bodies create poetics and questions. In his words; how does moving materials around elevate them and how does transcendence take place?

Michael earned his BFA degree from the University of Benin, Nigeria in 2018 and received the inaugural Tilga Art Grant in 2020. He was a recipient of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Fellowship, 2023, and in 2024 he was awarded The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and The Dean Carol Becker Fellowship, Columbia University. Igwe currently lives and work in New York where he attends Columbia University’s School of the Arts for his MFA degree. Michael has been invited to participate in projects, exhibitions, (solo and group), fairs and residencies by institutions in Africa, Europe and the United States.